Doing LOTS of Harm, in Fact

This month marks a strange anniversary of sorts for me. It was 2 years ago this month that I was sitting in a chair looking at my unborn baby in 4D. She was precious! We had previously found out that our baby had several “markers” for down syndrome and had enlarged kidneys which may have required surgery upon birth. Thus we were monitored more carefully and had a ton more ultrasound shots at a hospital. This was the first level 3 ultrasound with this pregnancy (I had had one with my 3rd with no problems). I got to gaze upon my baby for almost a full hour – it was wonderful! I was there alone as my husband was out of town. The specialist doctor called me in after the ultrasound to go over the findings. The first words out of his mouth to me were “Well you will have to come in tomorrow for your abortion because of how far along you are.” I was utterly shocked and devastated. All I could do was mutter “What??????” He then proceeded to tell me that my baby had more “markers” for down syndrome and it didn’t look good. I was more shocked that his automatic assumption was that I would abort my baby. I almost couldn’t comprehend what he was telling me in that office. All I wanted to do was run as far away from that man as possible.

Click, please, to read the rest.

We’ve become slaves to technology, which is exactly backwards. Just because we can use ultrasound technology to look miraculously at a baby in the womb does not necessarily mean it is powerful and accurate enough to be 100% useful in making life-or-death decisions. People have to interpret the results. People bring biases and subjectivity. People have to make choices and live with the consequences.

Plus, is it really true that 90% of pre-term babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted? That’s awfully disturbing. Should we even have that choice in the first place? We don’t seem to be very responsible with that power.

And whose interests are really being served in that scenario? Certainly not the child’s. We’ve gone down the eugenics road before, and it isn’t a good road.

“First do no harm” has limits, I guess. It depends on who is being harmed. And the weak and defenseless are first in line.

We’ve seen societies where the powerful kill the powerless on a whim. We always thought we were better than that.